Craig Boddington's Best Handloading Tips for Hunters

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A lot of hunters believe using factory-loaded ammo is perhaps the surest way to avoid an ammunition-related mishap when the time comes to squeeze the trigger on a once-in-a-lifetime trophy buck or some dangerous game that can bite, buck, claw, or maul you. I’m not here to persuade anyone against that, but I will say that since I learned to handload 60 years ago, my ratio of hunting with handloads versus hunting with factory-loaded ammo is probably 60–40, and that includes all the years I was doing TV, during which I politely used factory-loaded ammo produced by the many sponsors of those shows. My point is that one can hunt successfully with handloads. Of course, I wouldn’t hunt with anyone else’s handloads, but I’m happy to hunt any game on the globe with my own handloaded ammunition, and that includes big and dangerous game. This report is about what I think are the most important aspects of handloading for hunting.

Reliability Is the Name of the Game

I started hunting dangerous game with a .470 before modern factory loads existed. Same story years later with .416s, first a wildcat .416 Hoffman, later a .416 Rigby. One of the only misfires I’ve had in the field was with a .416 Rigby factory load (on a lion). That was exciting! It was the loudest “click” I’ve ever heard.

Lately, all my hunting with my .470, and much with the .450/.400-3”, has been with handloads. I’ve had no problems. Although factory ammunition is wonderfully reliable, there’s no reason why handloads aren’t at least equally reliable. This is largely up to you, the handloader. Part of the charm of handloading is the satisfaction of doing it yourself and doing it right.

The primer is the most sensitive component. Ammo manufacturers do get bad primers, one out of millions. Handloaders could get one bad one out of thousands, but I’ve never had a bad one. I store primers carefully—clean and dry. During the COVID-19 primer shortage, I used primers I’d had on the shelf for 25 years, with zero misfires.

Before priming, I wash my hands, dry them carefully, and handle the primers as little as possible. For hunting ammo, I hand prime, shaking them out onto the tray of a Lee or Hornady hand primer. Oh sure, I’ve seated primers upside down. Who hasn’t? To err is human, so the real key to reliability is to inspect, reinspect, and keep checking.

This applies to every step along the way. I inspect brass, looking for the telltale line for incipient head separation. While big-bore ammo is a personal passion, I’m also a classic lever-action guy. Rear-locking actions, such as Marlins, most Winchesters, and the Savage 99, stretch brass. Recently, I had my 1950s Model 99 .300 Savage on the range with handloads, planning on taking it on a hunt. On about the third shot I got a case-head separation. That rifle didn’t go on that hunt.

That case looked good, with no visible warning line. At the time, I hadn’t had that rifle long. I now know that, in that rifle, case life is zilch. Especially with older or uncommon cartridges, cases are precious, but that’s not a problem you want to encounter in the field. For hunting ammo, use cases that have been fired only once, at the most. New, unfired brass is even better.

Every step in the reloading process is subject to human error. What’s important is to establish your routine and hold to it. I have a dose of attention deficit disorder (ADD), so I silence my cell phone and have no TV or music while I’m handloading. More importantly, I have just one set of dies and components and just one propellant on the bench at a time.

Modern powder dispensers are probably accurate enough for hunting ammo; a deer is unlikely to notice a half-grain one way or the other. That doesn’t matter to me. I weigh all my charges to a tenth of a grain and trickle in the last little bit.

I charge cases in a loading block, usually five cases at a time. A consistent sequence avoids errors, but the real secret is to catch the inevitable mistake. Although my loading room is well-lit, my eyes aren’t what they once were. After charging, I grab a big flashlight and inspect powder levels. Mostly, I’m loading centerfire rifle ammo. If I lose my place and double-charge, I have powder spilling everywhere. With more volatile pistol powders, the risk is greater but is easily caught by essential visual inspection.

Performance Comes Before Accuracy

With popular cartridges that offer a wide selection of factory loads, you’re likely to find factory ammunition that groups really well, but with precise handloading techniques they probably can be beaten. However, unless you’re an extreme-range shooter, utmost accuracy is not your greatest concern with hunting handloads and striving for it can be counterproductive. Even for quarter-mile hunting shots, 1.5 MOA is good enough. Absolute reliability of feeding, firing, extracting, and ejecting comes first, followed by bullet performance on game. Both often require compromises.

It’s not a handloading secret that neck-sized cases, fired once and expanded to exactly fit your rifle’s chamber, are likely to be more accurate than either factory-loaded cartridges or full-length-sized cases. Except, in the field, you want cartridges that slam into the chamber easily. For hunting ammo, I use only full-length-sized cases. I might be sacrificing a few thousandths in group size, but that’s better than struggling to chamber a cartridge when a big buck is about to bolt.

Handloaders and benchresters know that optimal bulletseating depth is critical to accuracy. Usually, seating a bullet just off the lands makes for tighter groups. This is stuff we play with on the range. In the field, we don’t want close tolerances. Years ago, on a mountain in New Zealand, I chambered a handloaded Sierra 200-grain GameKing in my .300 H&H rifle. That load combination usually produced quarter-inch groups. The opportunity passed, so I opened the bolt and had an empty, primed case; a magazine box full of propellant granules; and a bullet stuck in the rifling. And I didn’t have a ramrod in my pack. I cast around; found a thin, straight tree branch; trimmed it; and managed to dislodge the bullet with it. It would have been simpler to seat the bullet a bit deeper, sacrifice a few thousandths in group size, and maintain reliability.

All the reloading manuals list a maximum cartridge overall length (COL) from SAAMI specifications for that cartridge. When loaded, today’s long, heavy-for-caliber, “low drag” bullets often exceed that important specification. This is not necessarily a problem, but it’s essential to be certain your load fits your magazine length and chambers properly with no risk of sticking the bullet in the rifling.

Despite the great variety in current factory-loaded ammunition, not all bullets are loaded by any ammo manufacturer, let alone offered in multiple brands. Perhaps the greatest advantage to handloading is that we can pick any bullet we want and work up a load for it. The ibex shown in the opening photograph for this article is proof. I took it in Tajikistan in 2022 with a handload propelling Hornady’s then-new CX component bullet. One quartering-to shot at 300 yards was all I needed. And doing it with a handload was tremendously satisfying, to say the least.

This applies universally but is especially true with the many cartridges available from just one source or relatively unavailable. It’s not just my beloved big bores that are a problem; dozens of less popular and older cartridges have been left behind. During the pandemic, I received—and still get—numerous emails from folks searching for ammo for .30-40 Krag, .303 British, .35 Remington, .250 and .300 Savage, and many more. Handloading is the simplest answer. Sometimes it’s almost the only answer. Friend Paul Cestoni, hunting deer in thick Eastern woods, is probably the only fan of the .375 Winchester who I personally know. He tells me he’s never even seen a box of factory ammo. Not a problem. He’s a handloader.

Like I said, bullet selection is a great advantage to loading your own. Also, sometimes, factory velocities can be improved upon. Here, I urge caution. The first thing I do when working up a load is break out the manuals and check the recommended propellants against what I have on hand for the bullet weight I intend to use. Barrels and chambers vary, so I start slow and work up, usually handloading five cartridges, then another five, up a couple grains, and so forth. This allows me to check for signs of high pressure and group size. If primers start to flatten or extraction gets sticky, I’m done. I pull the bullets and harvest the propellant.

For hunting ammo, I rarely approach maximum—because of reliability. Our California coast zone deer season is August, often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Southern Africa can be that hot in October, and Central Africa is always that hot. Loads that are just fine at home in January can get sticky when it’s 60 degrees warmer.

However, real velocity improvements are possible with some cartridges, especially in strong modern rifle actions, because older cartridges are often held to different standards, both in factory loads and in reloading manuals. Good examples are 6.5x55 and 7x57 Mauser. The SAAMI pressure specification for both is 51,000 psi. The respectively similar and more recent 6.5 Creedmoor and 7mm-08 are specified at 61,000 psi. Despite greater case capacity, the older cartridges can’t keep up. Even so, modern loading manuals suggest significant improvement in velocity over most current factory loads.

Also, for reasons unknown to me, some cartridges seem to be loaded slow. The .375 H&H is a lifetime favorite of mine, and it’s specified at 2,530 fps for a 300-grain bullet in a 24-inch barrel. Lately, I’ve chronographed several production loads and found many down in the low 2,400s. I doubt any buffalo will know the difference, but it bothers me that I’m getting five percent less velocity than I’m supposed to have. It’s no great trick to handload the .375 H&H up to where it’s supposed to be.

For obvious reasons, I do not recommend exceeding published load data. And for hunting ammo, I also don’t recommend pushing max loads. It’s not worth the risk for a couple dozen extra feet per second. When I was young, I pushed it farther than I do today. In 1981 I took a Savage 99 in .308 to South Africa. With, well, warm handloads. It was winter there, cooler than at home. Even so, I got a fired case stuck tight in the chamber and flew home with it that way. I couldn’t do that today and don’t know what I’d do. For hunting, keep your loads conservative!

In handloading, the world is your oyster. There are innumerable options for varying all the components to find the perfect combination for your rifle. For me, handloading is soothing because I must shut everything else out and focus on what I’m doing. You’ll establish your own sequence, and as you do that, you’ll establish your own routine for checking and inspecting every step along the way. After sizing, I wipe off the case lube, then I use a dial caliper to check case length, trimming when needed. Then I chamfer and deburr, reinspecting the cases as I handle them. Priming follows. I like to hand prime because I can feel the primer seat, and I inspect the primer as I remove the case from the tool. Then I weigh the powder charges, inspecting as described. For hunting ammo, I prefer to crimp the case to the bullet, so the bullet won’t work in or out in the magazine, or inside a pocket. For me, getting a crimp just right is the touchiest process. It’s easy to go too far and mess up the case mouth or shoulder. I reset the caliper to the desired COL, checking each cartridge after seating the bullet.

Theoretically, it’s tough to go wrong, provided you don’t get distracted. However, there is one more thing you really must do. Purely as a matter of safety, this is best done at the range, during your final sight-in session. Run every cartridge you intend to take on a hunt through your magazine and into and out of your rifle’s chamber. (It’s a good idea to do this with factory-loaded ammo, too.) Like I said at the beginning of this report, reliability is the name of the game in handloading for hunting. 

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